Grafoid Inc., part of Focus Graphite (‘Focus’, TSXV: FMS | OTCQX: FCSMF) has appointed Mr. Thomas H. Cruikshank, the former Chairman and CEO of Halliburton, as Strategic Advisor. This the third major strategic announcement to come out of Grafoid in less than a month after they announced forming a partnership with Mitsui Co. – one of the largest and influential Japanese trading houses – and signing an agreement with Altamat to adopt its proprietary 3D printing technology.

As a CEO of Halliburton, Mr. Cruikshank would have had to manage large infrastructure, foreign operations, logistics, long-range planning, considerable political risk among other things. He would also have had access to the world’s most influential ‘corridors of power’, being in a position to build a priceless rolodex of contacts worldwide Not surprisingly, after joining the Board of Lehman Brothers, Mr. Cruikshank was replaced by Dick Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton. Cheney had served as Secretary of Defense in the George H. Bush White House from 1989 to 1993 – and would go on to serve as US Vice-President from 2001-2009. The characteristics of managing Halliburton were ideal for someone who had managed the Pentagon. If the partnership with Mitsui will be invaluable in opening doors for Grafoid’s graphene products, Mr. Cruikshank will surely be able to open the door to top North American industry players. Meanwhile, Mitsui offers unrivaled distribution networks, which support the sales of Japanese products and services around the world. Mitsui will likely use its channels and network to introduce graphene to Japanese battery manufacturers like Hitachi or Panasonic as well as automotive groups like Toyota or Nissan.

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Grafoid has an expanding and pioneering array of graphene developments backed by ventures and intellectual property rights, bringing graphene ever closer to commercial reality such as its MesoGraf™ series. Grafoid and its parent Focus Graphite have also been involved in advanced applications for lithium iron phosphate (LiFeP) battery materials in partnership with Hydro-Québec and the development of graphene-based repayment cancer therapies in partnership with Calevia Inc.

MesoGraf™ (‘MesoGraf’) represents nothing short of the first platform for the industrialization and commercialization of graphene. MesoGraf bridges the gap between the growing bodies of graphene research with actual commercialization of the material, essentially making the science available to the market. Until very recently, graphene has been prohibitively expensive for industrial use. Graphene is composed of only one layer of carbon atoms which must be isolated and then arranged in a honeycomb structure, which is the key to its high strength. For years since the discovery of graphene in 2004, laboratories have been trying to come up with an economically viable method to produce the material. Many have claimed ‘revolutionary’ discoveries to bring this material into a mass production cycle but little has actually developed. MesoGraf, however, is much closer to becoming the elusive mass production graphene that so many have been trying to achieve.

MesoGraf was developed by Dr. Loh Kian Ping and Grafoid co-founder Dr. Gordon Chiu. The main difference between MesoGraf and all other attempts at developing a graphene material is that MesoGraf is finally able to offer the scalability that is needed to bring the material’s potential to the market. A scalable graphene material implies that it can be made to address a large increase in users and applications without undue effort. Scalability has been the ‘weak link’ in graphene until now. MesoGraf will be derived using natural flake graphite ore from Focus’s Lac Knife deposit in Quebec in a patented one-step process. Even this process is ‘scalable’ because, it can use any graphite ore with 10% or higher purity according to Focus.

Graphene will make its way in many electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, connected devices, batteries or flexible displays . But it will also be used in the manufacturing of extremely durable structures in the civil engineering, aerospace and automotive sectors.

Comments

Tracy Weslosky

More evidence in the case that the market for graphene is here today for such an international player to join Grafoid’s Advisory Board. In case you have not heard of Mr. Thomas H. Cruikshank — in addition to being the Chairman & CEO of Halliburton Energy Services from 1989 to 1995, President & CEO from 1983 to 1989 — allow me to draw your attention to that during his tenure in the early 1990s…”Halliburton provided extensive service to Kuwait in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm. He was replaced at Halliburton by Dick Cheney.” We have published here previously that it is our contention that graphene may be 1 of the 2 unnamed critical materials from the DoD –.